Florida fresh

 

          It's harvest time year round here and that always amazes me. The sun and sea are the best parts of living in Florida, and little else matters. Not the stuff we aqcuire, not the restaurants we frequent, or the celebrities at drop thousands at clubs. South Florida's best feature is in its basic natural state, where things flourish or diminish in the hot sun, or get soothed or swept away by ocean waves.

Ok, enough about that, here are some plants growing around here:

The heirloom tomatoes above took me a year to grow from seed and finally they are vine ripe. I'm gonna eat the hell out of you, little fella.

I've managed to harvest a few garden veggies, such as okra and mustard greens. It's the tropical fruits that always amaze me like the coconuts, avocados, and mangoes. It makes me appreciate Florida and forget about the nightmares of my daily work commute. Nature, thank you.

Tata, off to enjoy this beautiful day!

From our garden: Elderflower mojitos

Ahhhmazing. 

from Ikea, $4.49

   Recipe for yum:
       Fill a highball with ice,
       add 1 1/2 oz. of white rum
       squeeze two lime wedges and drop in
       Tear 6 mint leaves into bits and drop in
        add 1 oz. of Ikea Elderflower syrup
        Top glass with a shaker tin, or pint glass & shake
        Top off highball with soda
 

The most refreshing beach drink I could ever imagine. It's light and

fresh, and not too fruity.  Two of them and I am a happy beach bum.  Except in my case I substitute highball for plastic cup and bendy straw. So much better that sipping beer in a bikini. Yeech!

Helpful hint for beach:

Freeze the mint into ice cubes

Good news, too: mint grows like a weed and thrives in the full sun and "rainy season" conditions of our patio.

Okra, from seed to table

and into my mouth!

I totally neglected my okra research and harvested the pods a little late. I usually do my research not before, but during or maybe even after the fact. Oops... I like to learn by doing.

According to this article, okra is supposed to be harvested a few days after the bloom, when the pod is 2 to 3 inches. Who knew?  For some reason, I wanted them to get as big as they could!

They grow quickly, though. There will be more.

Apparently it was a little late for a two of my pods, which were tough to cut, and lacking the milky slimy sap that makes okra so good. I still ate them, a bit stringy, but i wasn't going to let my project go to waste. I did snip a tender young pod and it was delicious!

So here they are growing in action:

So bigger isn't always better

On the chopping block:

 Battered & fried in breadcrumbs, panko & garlic powder:

tiny serving, saving some for Hubbs tomorrow!

and the rest of my meal :)

A delicious salad & chicken parm  that Hubbs made this past  weekend.

Things I've learned about gardening II

African daisies

 7. Maybe plant lots of seedlings so if there's a time when you get lazy about your garden, you'll have more chances of survivors ;).

6. Stake everything! Yeah, buy those tomato cages. They grow into them before you know it.

Hummingbirds love him

5. So when your plants are about to die, they produce seeds, which you can plant again. My dying dill gave me little black seeds and my romaine produced little white fuzzies before they decided to give up on life.
4. You can compost hair, nails, eggshells, egg cartons, and toilet paper rolls.
3. Spinach and dill don't really like too much sun.
2. Green beans, unless grown in at least 20 plants or more, or in a bush are useless.
1. Milky sap on freshly cut lettuce is normal.

This week in garden pics:

okra blooms

this little cuke gonna make it?

.

Broccoli please don't give up!

basil blooms

not sure what this is....

Hello, dalia!

where's bully?

Things I've learned about gardening.

1. Milky sap on freshly cut lettuce is normal.
2. Green beans, unless grown in at least 20 plants or more, or in a bush are useless.
3. Spinach and dill don't really like too much sun.
4. You can compost hair, nails, eggshells, egg cartons, and toilet paper rolls.

My first 'mater.

To be continued...

Six months and still going strong!

Yesterday was our six month anniversary. We like celebrating the little things.

I left it up to the Hubbs to plan the evening. He made me a nice dinner, to which I was glad to come home after a long work day. He made Chicken Sicily, served with mashed potatoes. He paired it with a nice Marlborough sauvignon blanc. Oooh, let's not forget the salad that he cut from our garden!

 mmm...stuffed  with sundried tomatoes, pesto & feta

After dinner, it was Ice cream and movie night. We saw Date Night, with Tina Fey and Steve Carrell. There was a point in the movie when Steve Carrell asked Tina Fey if she can trust him to accomplish a task, and I turned to Shawn and asked, " Am I like this?" I can be a little

intense. Hey, at least I know I am not alone!

I was speaking to my mommy this morning and she asked about my garden. Here's some pics so you can see what we're growing ma:

The romaine of our labor

Our green beans.

 The gladiola bulbs that are bout two weeks old

Dill

more gladiolas & African daisies (i think)

Broccoli

Tomatoes

Sweet and Lemon Basil

marigolds, okra, and gladiolas

Thats mint, to the left of the bull

a pot of cucumber

and this is not a plant, but rather some delicious sangria I am enjoying while writing this ;)

We also have spinach and sunflowers but they were not picture worthy.

And a posting is not complete without some new Bully Wooly pics:

sit.

stay.

aw! a miss!

we love you anyway.

Love, US.

Spring is a blessing & a curse.

At least I got some planting done before I got assaulted by nature's pollination schemes. But I am fully loaded on the cetrizine right now, so, maybe it won't be as bad this year????
Maybe?
So about my plants. I was fully determined that we moved into a house that I would grow a garden. Funny thing is, I've only tilled a plot about 2' X 3' and the rest are in pots. Renting just feels so temporary. Pots are portable! Plus, I wasn't sure where the sunny spots were in the yard and I had to watch Bully for a while to figure out where he liked to pee the most.
So far I have

romaine lettuce

spinach

 sunflowers

 dill, mmm my favorite herb

Not to mention my tomatoes, basil, chives, rosemary and cukes. I've been told to watch out for those cukes. They invade other plants. I'll just keep them separate.

Last night after Mexican food we went to Coffeology for gelato. I sampled biscotti, but had cookies & cream, which I always do. Shawn had key lime pie and Brian had mint cookies & cream. It was good but I should have had the biscotti flavor.

Being the hoarder that I am, I realized hat the tiny plastic cups in which our gelato was served would make the perfect seedling starters. So I brought them home and also made identifiers with the tiny spoons. See?

The Bull loves his yard. He refused to come in from recess a couple of days ago when it was about 70 degrees. He's got some allergies right now so I gave him some benadryl. Pretty soon he'll wake up and drink the whole bowl of water.

This is him in his throne, the yard. I feel so happy that I could give him this again!